Scall Sees Increasing Role for UN in Achieving Peace in the Mideast

John Scali, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, said that he envisioned an “increasingly important” role for the UN in bringing about a Middle East peace settlement and that he hoped the oil crisis would be solved by multi-national cooperation. Scali discussed both topics yesterday at a press conference here his first since returning to the UN after undergoing surgery.

Scali indicated that the reason the House of Representatives turned down a U.S. appropriation estimated at $1.5 billion to the World Bank last week was because of the Arab oil embargo and the high price of oil. He hinted that the Administration does not intend to press the House on the matter until the oil embargo is lifted. “We have given in the past for economic assistance….The U.S. has poured $130 billion into foreign assistance and now, at a time of sudden increases in the price of oil, I can understand the consternation in Congress,” Scali said. He observed, with reference to the oil producing countries, that “The U.S. has been providing help to some of these very same countries.”

Scali described Sunday’s meeting between Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, which he attended as “a friendly meeting with officials who cooperated to end the war” in the Middle East. He repeated Kissinger’s earlier statement that he was “moderately optimistic” over the prospects of an Israeli-Syrian disengagement accord.

He confirmed that the financing of the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) was one of the subjects discussed at Sunday’s meeting. He said the U.S. would contribute its share of the UNEF budget at the “appropriate moment.” Scali said he placed high hopes in the multi-national oil crisis meeting to be held in Washington Feb: 11.